Iraq Bans Weapons of Mass Destruction Feb 14, 11:46 AM (ET)
By NIKO PRICE
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Saddam Hussein banned all weapons of mass destruction from Iraq on Friday, meeting a longtime U.N. demand hours before chief U.N. weapons inspectors delivered crucial reports on Iraq's disarmament.
The presidential decree forbids the production or importation of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, or of any materials that could be used to make them.
"All ministries should implement this decree and take whatever measures are necessary to punish people who do not adhere to it," the decree read.
The Iraqi government insists it has destroyed all such weapons and abandoned all programs to develop them. The United States and Britain claim Iraq is hiding weapons and programs, and have threatened war if Iraq does not convince them it is disarming on its own.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer reacted skeptically to Saddam's decree, saying: "If one would want to make believe and pretend that Iraq is a democracy that could pass meaningful laws, it would be 12 years late and 26,000 liters of anthrax short."
At the United Nations, chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said inspectors had not found any weapons of mass destruction, but that many proscribed weapons remain unaccounted for.
"Many proscribed weapons and items are not accounted for," he said. "One must not jump to the conclusion that they exist. However, that possibility is also not excluded."
Blix's counterpart, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the U.N. nuclear agency, pledged to expand the number of inspectors working in Iraq and at offices in Vienna, Austria in order to determine whether Iraq has revived its nuclear capabilities.
He said his teams do not need Iraq's full cooperation to complete their work.
(AP) Iraqis stand at attention next to a portrait of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein at the start of a... Full Image
The reports by Blix and ElBaradei were considered key to determining whether the United States and Britain will launch a war.
Saddam and his top deputies warned their enemies Friday not to use the reports as an excuse for war, and said Iraqis are ready to fight if attacked.
"Iraq is free of the so-called weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological and nuclear," the official Iraqi News Agency quoted the top leaders as saying. The leaders called the argument that Iraq possesses such weapons "an excuse to be used by aggressors in the Security Council as a cover for aggression."
"If the aggressors still attack, the blame should fall on them before God and the people. Iraqis will fight them as a people and as an armed force, with a spirit of faith and holy war," the leaders were quoted as saying.
Those attending the meeting included Saddam's cousin and confidante Ali Hasan al-Majid, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, and Izzat Ibrahim, vice chairman of Iraq's top executive body.
(AP) Armed Iraqi soldiers march past a mural with a portrait of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein during a... Full Image
Minutes before the U.N. reports, Iraq's 250-seat parliament held an emergency session and unanimously adopted a resolution accusing the United States and Britain of scheming to "control Iraq and the Arab world, steal its oil and wealth and draw a new political map on an ethnic, sectarian and colonial basis."
"The claims by (President) Bush and (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been refuted through visits to hundreds of sites in which inspectors have not found any arms or banned material," the parliament said.
U.N. inspection teams headed Friday to a mineral water plant and to the al-Muthanna chemical weapons installation in the desert northwest of Baghdad, Information Ministry officials said. Inspectors there have been destroying artillery shells and neutralizing four plastic containers filled with mustard gas.
Another team of inspectors headed by helicopter to Diallah province, northeast of Baghdad, the officials said, adding they didn't know their precise destination.
After the 1991 Gulf War, inspectors oversaw the destruction of the bulk of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and dismantled the country's program to develop nuclear weapons. The inspections resumed in November to search for remaining weapons or revived programs.
France, Germany and Russia say the arms inspectors should have more time to verify Iraq's claim that is free of banned weapons programs. But the U.S. and British governments are pushing for early U.N. authorization for an invasion of Iraq if, in their view, it isn't complying sufficiently with the disarmament resolutions.
All of those countries were closely watching Friday's reports at the United Nations, and Al-Thawra, the newspaper of Iraq's ruling Baath Party, urged the weapons inspectors to be objective and careful in what they said.
"We are not expecting this report to be on Iraq's side. We only demand that it mention mere facts, without any additions or omissions," the newspaper, the only one to publish on Friday's holiday in Baghdad, said in a front-page editorial.
The inspectors, it said, "should weigh every sentence in that report, every explanation and every conclusion, with high responsibility and sensitivity, because what they are going to say will have serious consequences."
"A historic responsibility lies on the shoulders of Blix and ElBaradei," the newspaper said. "We hope they are fit for this responsibility."
Also Friday, U.S. fighter planes bombed a mobile surface-to-air missile system near Basra, in southern Iraq on Friday _the third strike in that area this week by planes enforcing a "no fly" zone. A U.S. military statement said the missile system posed a threat to U.S. planes.
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Niko Price is correspondent at large for The Associated Press.
